Bud Galvin

February 22nd, 2012 | Author: BMcKenna

Bud Galvin

Harry Galvin

Henry Francis Galvin

This biography was pieced together after I was contacted by Nora Galvin, the subject’s daughter. She provided a great deal of Galvin family information and proved essential as we exchanged numerous emails. She also provided the picture of Bud Galvin with Glendale Police Team, circa the late 1940s and contributed greatly to the piece on Hooks Galvin, her grandfather.

Henry Francis Galvin was born on August 26, 1914 in Boston. His parents wanted to officially name him Harry but were refused by the registrar because it was supposedly only a nickname, not a proper name. From his youth, he was known as Buddy or Bud, a moniker bestowed on him by his sister.

His parents were Harry Galvin and the former Mary Catherine Trueman. Harry, a former ballplayer, is chronicled here.

Bud attended Dorchester High School. Besides playing baseball, he also boxed.

Teams

1934 Lowell (MA), Northeastern League
1935 Elmira (NY), New York-Pennsylvania League; Charleston (WV), Middle Atlantic League
1936 Charleston; Alexandria (LA), Evangeline League
1937 Alexandria; Henderson (TX), East Texas League
1938 Portsmouth (VA), Piedmont League
1939 Portsmouth; Spartanburg (SC), South Atlantic League

Baseball

Bud Galvin was tall, 6’2” or 6’3”, and weighed 175 to 180 pounds. He threw righthanded and batted left. He joined his first professional club, Lowell, at age 19 in 1934. He played in the outfield with the club but also pitched extensively throughout his minor league career.

Baseball-reference.com statistics:

Batting: 355 games, .262 average
Pitching: 78 games, 32-27 win-loss record

He played the entire 1934 with Lowell, May to September, and was admired for his batting as well as his fine outfield play.

Lowell Sun 5/22/1934

Lowell Sun 5/29/1934

He began 1935 with Elmira but landed in Charleston, West Virginia by mid-June. The new recruit was considered “the best outfielder on the home club.” (Charleston Gazette, 21 August 1935)

Charleston Daily Mail 5/6/1936

However, he was released by Charleston in mid-June 1936 as the parent club, the Detroit Tigers, shuffled players within its farm system. He soon joined Alexandria and finished the year there and returned for spring training in 1937. He was then released in mid-June and made his debut with Henderson on the 24^th, a four-hit, 11-0 victory over Texarkana.

Galvin joined Portsmouth in April 1938 for a season-plus before being traded on August 5, 1939 with cash to Spartanburg for Buck Rogers who had a cup of coffee with the Washington Senators in 1935.

He contracted malaria while playing with the southern clubs and this may in part have curtailed his baseball career.

In a personal autobiography, Galvin wrote that he also played for (at some point):

Fore River, MA (perhaps a Bethlehem Steel company team)
Thorpe Motors (South Shore League)
Jackson, MS (Cotton States League)

The Jackson reference had to be in 1936 if it occurred.

Personal

Galvin grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts. As a teenager, he helped his father erect a gas station near their home. He worked there doing various jobs, such a delivery driving – doing so in the winters during his early pro baseball career.

He later secured employment as a laborer and loftsman at the Bethlehem Steel shipyard in nearby Quincy.

On September 7, 1940, Bud married a local girl, Margery Ward. They had six children.

He enlisted in the Marines, serving from June 29, 1944 until being discharged on December 11, 1945. He was a PFC in Company A, 6^th Tank Battalion, 6^th Marine Division. With them, he traveled the Pacific, seeing action in Okinawa.

To ease his malarial symptoms, Galvin moved his family to California after the war. There he worked as a policeman in Glendale in the late 1940s – note the accompanying picture of him with the company team.

The family eventually settled in Canoga Park, Los Angeles – today known as West Hills. There, he became an aerospace design engineer for various local firms and worked on the Apollo projects.

Bud Galvin passed away on March 24, 2003 in Santa Maria, California.

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